ARTICLES ABOUT RADIUM BY DATE - PAGE 4

Oswego officials hope a new organization of local subdivisions will help keep local government and property owners better informed "This is an avenue of communication back and forth," said Village President Craig Weber at last week's inaugural Oswego Homeowners Confederation meeting, which drew more than 40 people to a public works facility conference room. The organization is patterned after the 25-year-old Naperville Area Homeowners Confederation, which includes more than 130 subdivisions and homeowner groups and is active in community and policy issues.

Plainfield water customers will see their rate increase as officials try to cover the $6 million cost of bringing the village's water into federal compliance. The Village Board has approved a rate increase from $1.97 per 100 cubic feet of water, or 750 gallons, to $2.72. The increase, which takes effect in November, will add $7.50 to the average monthly water bill. That money would be put into a separate fund to cover the cost of achieving compliance with the EPA to reduce the amount of radium in the village's water supply.

Plainfield residents may get higher water and sewer rates next year to pay the estimated $6 million cost of bringing the village's drinking water up to federal safety standards. In a budget overview presented this week to trustees, Finance Director Chris Minick said rates could rise 17.5 percent, adding $7.50 a month to the average customer's water bill. That money would go into a separate fund to help pay for reducing radium in the village's water supply to comply with Environmental Protection Agency regulations.

Lockport has dug new shallow wells and plans to dig more and add other improvements in an effort to provide purer drinking water to residents at a lower cost than tapping Lake Michigan. The city had long relied on deep wells, but they tend to have levels of the chemical radium, which will no longer be acceptable under federal regulations. Though other communities in the southwest suburbs have opted to use Lake Michigan water to overcome the radium problem, Lockport decided to go with shallow wells to avoid more than doubling water rates.

Joliet is poised to start engineering work on a project to tap a new source of water to replace wells with radium levels exceeding federal standards. The $75 million to $80 million project will enable the city to draw water from the Kankakee River now that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has decided to adopt the toughest standards for radium, a suspected cause of bone cancer. The standards were first set in 1976, but the danger at low levels was continually debated, leading the EPA in 1991 to propose loosening the standards.

Plainfield officials have agreed to comply with federal regulations to reduce the amount of radium in the village's water supply, and water customers soon will learn exactly how much it will cost them. A cost breakdown of the village's three options, including piping in Lake Michigan water, will be presented to customers in December. Other options include installation of a central ion exchange system that softens the water or installation of a lime softening system. Each option would deliver soft water from the tap but result in higher water bills, according to Steve Larson, vice president of Baxter & Woodman, a Mokena consulting firm hired by Plainfield.

Facing a federal deadline to remove radium from the village water supply, Plainfield Village Board members this week said they were leaning toward abandoning the current deep well system and bringing in Lake Michigan water. The village has three options to comply with the Environmental Protection Agency's order to remove the radium by December 2003: install a central ion exchange system that softens the water; install a lime softening system; or pump in Lake Michigan water through Citizens Water Resources Co. of Woodridge.

So far the news coming from an intergovernmental task force could have homeowners who live in areas near Lisle with contaminated wells tapping into the philosophy of the glass being either half full or half empty. Comprising local, county, state and federal officials, the task force recently met for the first time since being created last month to discuss how to pay to bring Lake Michigan water to the affected areas. "It's not a black or white thing," Al Garver, a supervisor with the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency's Bureau of Water, said earlier this month of the chances of receiving help through a state loan program.

It took more than a decade of planning, but Lake Michigan water finally is flowing through 100,000 taps in southwest suburban Bolingbrook and Homer Township. They were among only a few communities in the Chicago area that still relied on well water. Then, late last month, a pumping station spigot was turned on, sending lake water via an 18-mile-long pipeline from a pumping station in Bedford Park. "Lake Michigan water offers a solution to the quantity and quality of water required for this growing region, and it offers a solution to the water quality and environmental issues such as iron hardness in shallow wells and radium in deep wells," said Reed Scheppman, vice president and general manager of Citizens Water Resources Co. of Woodridge.